The preferred embodiment concerns a converter unit and a method to transfer control information between at least two processing units of a printing or copying system that respectively have at least one data interface for exchange of control information.
Known high-capacity printing or high-capacity copying systems with printing capacities greater than 100 sheets DIN A4 per minute and printing speeds of up to more than 2 m per second typically comprise pre- and/or post-processing units that are often executed as separate modules and that are coupled with at least one image generation unit. The at least one image generation unit and the pre- and/or post-processing units are arranged in succession in a paper travel direction indicating production direction in order to serially process the substrate material. The paper travel direction is generally the transport direction of the substrate material through the respective high-capacity printing or high-capacity copying system. A high-capacity printer or high-capacity copier is advantageously used as an image generation unit of the high-capacity printing or high-capacity copying system.
The control and coordination of the processing steps of the individual processing units requires an exchange of data with processing information between the processing units of the printing or copying system. In particular in the processing of web-shaped substrate material, a real-time processing of the processing information pertaining to the paper travel is required in order to control the processing steps of the individual processing unit and to attune them to one another. The desire and the requirement thereby exist to be able to combine apparatuses of different manufacturers into a printing or copying system in that the individual apparatuses are arranged in series such that they advantageously form a complete printing path. Depending on the type and the requirements for the production of a printing result to be produced, the printing path can also comprise multiple printing units as well as auxiliary apparatuses such as, for example, stackers, cooling sections, re-humidifiers, cutting, folding, binding, stapling or stitching, enveloping, franking and/or packaging units.
In order to be able to satisfy continually increasing requirements for the processing workflow in the production of printing products, print job chaperone data are known in the prior art, in particular what are known as job ticket data that are exchanged between multiple software and/or hardware systems in addition to a print data stream or document data stream. Applications are also known in which job ticket data are inserted into the print data stream. The job ticket data are advantageously stored in a separate file and advantageously correspond to a job definition format known as a JDF. It is also known to provide a job messaging format (which is designated as a JMF) in addition to the job definition format. An industry consortium has agreed upon the JDF specification for exchange of data formats in the printing process, which specification exists (as of the point in time of the present patent application) as version 1.3 from 30 Sep. 2005 and can be downloaded via the Internet site http://www.cip4.org.
For data exchange between the processing units of high-capacity printing systems and/or high-capacity copying systems, it is also known to provide for this a specialized, standardized data interface. Such a data interface known as a UP3I (Universal Printer, Pre- and Post-Processing Interface) has been standardized by an industry consortium. An exchange of data with processing information (in particular of control information) between printing apparatuses and pre- and post-processing units that can be combined with these printing apparatuses, as well as with an operating unit integrated into a processing unit and/or with a separately arranged operating unit, is possible in a simple manner with the aid of the UP3I data interface. For the UP3I interface, processing information (in particular as control commands and incident reports) that is typical for the processing units and the production workflow of a printing path, are standardized in the interface commands of the UP3I interface. Details regarding this UP3I interface as well as regarding the standard of the UP3I interface that is present in the current version 1.20 from 2 Nov. 2004 are published on the Internet site http://www.UP3I.org at the point in time of the application.
It is desirable that a complete page tracking in the processing of individual sheets as well as a complete form tracking in the processing of web-shaped substrate material is ensured with the aid of the data exchange between the individual processing units of a printing system, and that the required error correction techniques are determined and executed if an error occurs. These error correction techniques in particular are to determine whether the printing and the processing of individual pages or forms must be repeated, and if yes the pages or forms that must be repeatedly generated are to be determined automatically. This is in particular desirable in the production of comparably complex and large print jobs (for instance in the production of books) so that the entire partially produced print job is not classified as defective and the print pages already generated have to be separated out as spoilage or maculature.
The printing unit or the printing units generally form the boundary between the pre-processing units and the post-processing units. Depending on the type and design of the printing unit and the processing requirements specified by the print job, arrangements are also selected in which multiple printing apparatuses are arranged in series. Depending on the type and design of the printing apparatus that forms the image generation unit, this is in the position to print images with one or more colors on the front and/or back side of the substrate material to be printed. What are known as twin or triple configurations of multiple printing apparatuses can thereby also be provided that are comprised of two or three printing apparatuses between which intermediate processing units can also be provided, in particular turners, buffer units (paper buffers), cooling and/or humidifying units.
Pre-processing units are, for example, unrolling units, single sheet feeder units (what are known as feeders), mark printing devices to generate pressure markings etc. Post-processing units are, for example, stitching machines, cutting machines, folding machines, binding machines, devices to inject additional sheets etc.
In addition to the UP3I data interface for data exchange between the individual processing units of a printing system, proprietary solution approaches for the exchange of control information are known. However, a multitude of these interfaces are not standardized, whereby the exchange of processing information (in particular of control signals) must be adapted for processing units to be combined with one another. For example, what is known as a Type 1 interface was defined by Siemens AG at the beginning of the '90s, which interface has been used in a plurality of high-capacity printers as an interface to couple these printers with pre- and/or post-processing units. For example, the Type 1 interface has eleven desired use signals that are unidirectional and connect the multiple processing units with the printing system via opto-couplers, independent of potential. A similar interface has been defined as the DFA Level 1 interface by the Xerox Corporation.
Starting from such proprietary solutions, the aforementioned standard for UP3I has been developed in order to enable a continuous communication within a digital printing path with apparatuses (i.e. processing apparatuses) of different manufacturers. A high degree of automation of the printing path can be achieved via the use of apparatuses with a respective UP3I interface and via a corresponding data exchange of data with processing information. In particular, UP3I enables automated job exchange as well as a central control and a central monitoring of all apparatuses of the printing path, whereby what is known as a single point of operation is possible.
In principle it is provided to use UP3I both in single sheet printing systems and in printing systems for the printing of web-shaped substrate material. However, the UP3I interface is presently used only for single sheet printing systems since—in spite of the desire for a real-time capability of the UP3I interface that is formulated in the UP3I standard—a real-time-capable processing of data with processing information is not possible with the aid of the UP3I interface. In single sheet printing systems, a time-critical paper travel control is presently avoided in that the processing information are already transferred to the respective processing unit before the arrival of a single sheet, whereby, if this processing unit detects the arrival of the respective single sheet with the aid of a sheet edge sensor, the processing information associated with this single sheet is used for its processing.
No printing path for continuous printing (i.e. for processing of web-shaped substrate material) in which UP3I is used for paper travel control at printing speeds of 1 m per second and faster is presently known anywhere in the world that actually functions in practice for high-capacity printers, since the processing of the web-shaped substrate material with the aid of various processing units requires a real-time processing, at least of a portion of the paper travel information; UP3I presently does not provide such a real-time processing with the reliability that is necessary for practical use.
In known high-capacity printing or high-capacity copying systems, given web-shaped substrate material barcodes are printed on the web-shaped substrate material (advantageously on each form to be processed) for form tracking as well as for paper travel control, which barcodes are then read by barcode readers of the individual processing units in order to verify the position of the substrate material and to identify individual print form regions. Corresponding processing information can thereby be applied at the correct region of the web-shaped substrate material.
The data transfer of the UP3I interface defined in the standard is also physically based on a Firewire data connection between the individual data processing units according to the IEEE 1394 standard. The physical transmission layer, the connection layer for conversion of transaction requests into packets and to secure transactions given transmission errors, the transaction layer for an asynchronous, secure transfer of data between the processing units, and a bus management layer for bus configuration and management activities according to the IEEE 1394 standard are thereby used. Building on this data transmission, a transport layer and at least one application layer are defined by the UP3I interface.
However, in practice problems occur given data connections according to the IEEE 1394 standard in an industrial printing technology environment. In particular, the data transmission according to the IEEE 1394 standard with modules available on the market is susceptible to disruption due to electromagnetic influences, whereby in practice repeated problems have occurred in the transmission of data with processing information in printing systems. Furthermore, the existing hardware to provide data transmission connections according to the IEEE 1394 standard and to provide the IEEE 1394 layers required for the UP3I interface only a relatively small range of software and hardware are present, wherein the propagation of data interfaces according to the IEEE 1394 standard in new apparatuses outside of the industrial printing technology environment continuously decreases, and the range of interface modules for data interfaces according to the IEEE 1394 standard has also continuously decreased; many notable manufacturers no longer support this standard. Add to this that only one module (what is known as a link layer module) that can be connected with a microcontroller and that provides a data interface according to the IEEE 1394 standard is presently provided, wherein it cannot be foreseen how long this link layer module will still be available. Additional available IEEE 1394 interface modules have a PCI or PCIe interface and are thus usable only with data processing units that have a PCI bus or PCIe bus. It is thus to be expected that IEEE 1394 data interfaces will in the future still be supported only by larger data processing systems such as personal computers and blade servers, whereby the integration into simple pre- and/or post-processing apparatuses is not reasonable for economic reasons, and a UP3I interface can thereby no longer be provided for a plurality of processing units.
The realization of a UP3I data connection with a switched network connection as a physical transmission route between two processing units of a printing system is known from the German patent application DE 10 2007 019 312.4 (not previously published). In addition to the switched network connection, a real-time-capable bus system can also be provided as a UP3I data connection for transfer of signals in real time. The cited documents are herewith incorporated by reference into the present specification.